The Story of a Boy who Loved a Girl
by wheretheskyseaandearthmeet
Summary: Once upon a time, there was a boy who loved a girl, and they lived in a camp we did not know exists, in a world we did not know exists. But did she love him back, too?


_I recently reread The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (a very good book but a total life-ruiner) and came up with this one-shot._

_Warning: Heaps of Jeyna fluffiness up ahead!_

_For I Am Annabeth the Daughter of Athena because she is a reviewer I can always count on._

_Disclaimer: All publicly recognisable characters, settings ect. ect. are the property of their respective owners (Rick Riordan and Nicole Krauss). The original characters (if there are any) and plot are property of the author (Nicole Krauss and I). No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended._

* * *

**Once upon a time, there was a boy who loved a girl, and they lived in a camp we did not know exists, in a world we did not know exists.**

The first time he saw her, she had just joined the legion and was getting the hang of her new _gladius_ by tearing practice dummies apart with ease.

The sun was just starting to set; allowing for golden sunlight to bounce of her raven black hair.

She looked to be around his age and around his height, too, and he would've passed her for just an average 12 year old if it weren't for her eyes. They were two of the shiniest, yet blackest, eyes he had ever seen, and it didn't just stop there; they seemed to tell a story. A story of great tragedy and even greater triumph.

It was those two eyes, ones that he could've sworn to be made of onyx, that lured him in; made him want to know just exactly what story those two eyes told.

The girl stopped stabbing her sword into the lifeless dummies to wipe sweat off her brow and a part of Jason was instantly drawn to this mysterious girl and yet, another part of him resisted - wanting to remain the same Jason Grace he was now.

"Look at me!" he wanted to scream aloud.

"No, don't." Another voice in the back of his mind pleaded. "I can still walk away if you don't."

But it was too late; she had looked up.

It had only lasted a second before she scowled at him and went back to pulverising the training dummy, but in that moment she did, he had completely and utterly fallen for her.

* * *

**When they were 12, he told her she looked pretty in front of everyone at the Forum.**

"What is your problem?" She yelled. "You are always in my way, and don't say that it's purely coincidental because you and I both know that it's not! Everyone knows that you stare at me all the time, and don't think I don't notice you following me around all day, every day!"

It was true. Jason had been staring at her whenever he could – during morning muster, breakfast, classes, lunch, training, afternoon muster, dinner, war games and pretty much any other opportunity he had. Was it really that obvious?

Jason was so infatuated with this girl he had even taken to "accidentally" bumping into her around New Rome in hopes of starting up a conversation with her but it never worked out, until now and it was not in the way he wanted it to.

"If there's something you want to say to me, why don't you just say it to my face?" She yelled.

Jason looked at the girl. Her raven hair was in its usual plait, and she was in a simple purple Camp Jupiter shirt and shorts but he couldn't help but think she was the prettiest girl he'd ever laid eyes on, even with her murderous eyes.

Jason considered his options, which weren't looking to good, as people began gathering around to see who was causing the scene and why.

Either he could run away from camp like a coward, and spend the rest of his life in the 'real' world, fighting off monsters and living on the streets, or he could just confess his feelings to her.

The answer was obvious; he was going to pack is bags and leave home.

He gulped as she expectantly waited for him to say something, then opened his mouth to say goodbye to everyone when, without warning, the words suddenly came tumbling out.

"I just wanted to say that you look really pretty today. That's all." He blurted before making a run for it, leaving an angry girl to wonder what was wrong with the son of Jupiter.

* * *

**It was a while before she started to speak to him again and even longer before they became friends. **

"You shouldn't listen to anything Octavian says. Nobody believes him anyways – he's nuts. I mean, you coming from Circe's Island? That's one of his more far-fetched lies. Don't take it seriously because we don't."

She didn't say anything or even look up. Instead, she continued to poke at the damp dirt on the bank of the Little Tiber with a stick.

Jason sighed. He did not know why he suddenly felt like he had to find and comfort her after the augur decided to recite one of his readings, which included her and an evil sorceress, to everyone at breakfast.

Jason picked up a stick from the ground and went over to where she was crouching to draw patterns in the mud, too, and began telling her a story about when he was nine and some of the older boys bullied him because it was un-Roman to have girls always cooing at you, especially when you're in the legion and despite being the only son of Jupiter, and after he threw stones at them, denting their armour, they never bothered him again.

"Sometimes, you've just got to stand up for yourself." He told her.

"But it's bad to throw rocks." She said, looking up at him.

He shrugged. "I know, but you're the daughter of Bellona; you'll find something better than stones."

He could've been mistaken, but he thought he saw the corners of her mouth lift slightly at his words, prompting him to add, "I'm sure of it."

* * *

**When they were 13, she got upset at him and, again, she didn't speak to him for a long time.**

"You move away every time I walk towards you and you suddenly start talking to someone else whenever I try to talk to you. You've make it pretty obvious that you don't want to be my friend, Jason."

"No, it's not like that!"

"Then how is it?"

He took a deep breath. "Well, Bobby told me it was uncool to be friends with a girl-"

"So it's OK to ignore me because I'm a girl?" The daughter of Bellona said in a dangerously low voice.

"Ye- No!"

It was clear that she was not in the mood for listening.

"If you're so reluctant to be my friend now, why don't you do us both a favour and stay out of my life?" She yelled.

"Because I just can't." He admitted.

"Well, you have been doing a pretty good job of it for the past four weeks." She folded her arms, turning her head away.

"Actually, I've been doing a pretty good job of secretly stalking you for the past four weeks." He said with a sheepish smile.

She did not turn her head back but, from what he could see, her expression had softened. Slightly.

_It's now a good time to squeeze in an apology. _He thought to himself.

"I'm sorry." He said sincerely. "I'm sorry for avoiding you for a month. And for going along with Dakota to throw mud at you and the girls as you exited your cabin. And fo-"

"That was you?" She asked angrily.

"Yeah, but it was all his ide-"

She rolled her eyes impatiently, "What else you _magnus porcus_?"

He didn't finish explaining and, instead, threw in a few more things to be sorry for.

"And also for copying off your paper in the Latin roots test at school and then passing your answers around the class."

She pointed an accusing finger at him. "I knew you didn't study _that_ hard!"

He lightly brushed it away. "I didn't study at all."

She rolled her eyes again. "And?" She prompted him.

"And for pretending to lose during our sparing match that one time during training."

"You what?" She yelled, eyes wide with anger.

_Uh-oh. _He thought. _I shouldn't have mentioned that._

"Rematch! Field of Mars! In five minutes!" She yelled before marching off in the direction of the barracks to get the _gladius_, no doubt.

"Does that mean I'm forgiven?" He called after her.

She did not reply but continued muttering a long string of insults directed at him as she walked off. "_Bardus lovis filium. Vos ire contristabitur_."

* * *

**Despite their relationship being largely built on arguments and banter, she slowly started falling for him.**

She was in the mess hall, sitting next to the son of Jupiter, wondering why he was not distracting her as usual. She felt as if she had done something horrible, like, she had rode over his grandmother with a chariot and then went on to set her on fire while he witnessed it all happening.

She was in the mess hall, sitting next to the son of Jupiter, watching him play with his dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets. She suddenly felt something she didn't have a name for.

The daughter of Bellona quickly rummaged around her mind, looking for a word that described the new feeling she was experiencing– a stiflingly warm feeling, deep down inside where you know something is happening that will change you and you're not entirely sure you want it to.

She was in the mess hall, sitting next to the son of Jupiter, trying to keep down this new feeling. She was finding it hard to do so and her hands were trembling; making her food fall off her fork.

"Um, are you OK?" He asked her, looking at all the fallen pasta spirals on the table.

"F-fine. I'm fine." She stuttered, inwardly cursing herself and this new emotion.

She was in the mess hall, sitting next to the beautiful son of Jupiter and she could see him glimpsing up at her from the corner of her eye, just as she was doing the same to him.

She wouldn't admit to liking him to anyone, and at times, not even to herself, but she did. And in between the time it took her to catch him glancing at her and for him to quickly look away and pretend nothing had happened, she decided to let the new feeling consume her, and she was never quite the same again.

* * *

**When they were 14, on her birthday, he kissed her for the first time.**

It was her birthday and they were lying down under a tree, joking around and learning words from the English to Latin dictionary he had given her.

"Hey, do you remember last week when we made the promise that no matter what happens, we'll stay like this forever?" She asked.

"Yeah,"

"But what if something unimaginable happened and we couldn't be together anymore?" She asked.

Obviously, she was still thinking of the promise.

"Even then I will love you. I will find a way." He said casually.

She looked at him with her eyebrows raised high, a puzzled look on her face.

_Was it something I said? _He asked himself.

He replayed their conversation in his head, turning bright red as he did.

"Y-you know. 'Love', like, uh, friendship 'love'..." He stuttered, trying to avert any further embarrassment. In a quick attempt to change the subject, he asked, "Look at that. What is that?"

She looked up to where he was pointing.

"A cloud." She rolled her eyes.

"No, no, I meant in Latin."

She opened her new dictionary to the 'C' section of the English side.

"_Nubes_."

He, still looking at it, tilted his head to the right. "It kind of looks like a rabbit, doesn't it?"

She flipped through the dictionary again. "_Leporinum formavitque nubes, _then."

"What's my favourite animal called?" He asked, looking over at her. "Can you look that up for me?"

"_Aquila_."

"And yours?"

"_Pardus_."

"What would you call a snake in Latin?"

She didn't consult the book this time, "Ah, that would be 'Octavian'."

Jason chuckled before pointing to her knee.

"What's this?" he asked, resuming his question-asking.

The birthday girl looked it up and replied. "_Genu_."

"And this?" he asked, pointing to her elbow.

"_Cubito_."

"_Cubito_? It sounds better in Latin than it does in English."

She gave a small smile.

"And this?"

"_Scapulam_."

"And this?"

"_Fragmencapillus_."

"What about this?" he asked.

He was tracing her bottom lip with his thumb. Jason did not know how it came to this but it didn't matter; he was looking into her eyes. Its clarity was obscured by something still unknown to him, but still, they shone brightly.

"I don't know." She almost whispered, eyes round and filled with uneasiness and - was he mistaken? - wanting.

There was a moment of quiet, where they continued unblinkingly looking into each other's eyes.

"Jason-?" She began asking but was cut off by his kiss.

It was a slow one. A gentle one. One long overdue. It was one he imagined himself giving her and it surprised him that he could.

She didn't pull away. Instead, he could feel the soft brushing of eyelashes against his as her eyes fluttered close.

In the distance a bell rung, signalling the end of their kiss, and the girl hastily broke their almost-perfect kiss.

Jason rolled over onto his back with a sigh as the girl he had just kissed rushed to dust herself off and pick up her now-beloved dictionary.

"Come on, Jason. We're going to be late for muster."

Jason sat up but did not stand up to go.

"Just wait for a moment. I want to remember this." He said.

She didn't roll her eyes or conceal her smile, but began walking without him.

He watched her silhouette she sauntered off to muster, a new warmth consuming him a little more with each step she took.

_Is this 'love'? _He thought to himself, eyes shifting towards the sky.

Butterflies in his stomach, he did not know existed, did summersaults, confirming this.

He looked back at her retreating outline and let out a small laugh, _So, I fell in love. I fell in love and she knows it, too._

* * *

**They were careful not to let anyone know of their love.**

"Let's go to the Berkley Hills forest." He said.

"No."

"Why?" He asked, nudging her with his elbow.

She pushed him away. "Because that's where all the couples go to kiss."

"But that's what we are; a couple. Aren't we?" He asked, amused.

"Yeah, I guess." She said unsteadily and then continued in a firmer voice. "But not like them."

"But you like kissing me." He said, quite childishly, in a sing-song voice.

She narrowed her eyes at him but didn't reply.

There was a short silence where only the scuffling of their feet on the dirt road could be heard.

It was a nice day, and he was walking down the Via Praetoria next to a nice girl, and her nice hand was dangling by her nice side. Jason did what any other boyfriend would've done and grabbed his girlfriend's hand.

"What are you doing?" She asked pulling her hand from his grasp.

He rolled his eyes. "Trying to hold your hand." He thought it was obvious enough.

She quickly glanced around as if to make sure no one saw.

"Aren't I allowed to?" He asked with a small laugh at her caution.

"No." She snapped.

He raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"

"Because people will know."

"Know what?"

"About us."

"That's just stupid. Who cares if people know?"

She shook her head. "It's best if we keep _this_," she said, motioning her hands between them, "a secret."

"Why?"

She looked up at him. "It can't be taken from us, then."

* * *

**When they were 15, she trusted him enough to tell him her biggest secret and he trusted her enough to tell her his.**

"So, what Octavian said was true; I did come from Circe's Island but he doesn't know about the pirates." She finished telling him.

They didn't say anything for a while. Instead, they just let the silence fill the night and the night fill the silence as they laid, looking up at Lady Nox's handiwork, on the grassy bank of the Little Tiber.

Jason untangled his fingers from the grass. "I have a secret, too." He looked up at the constellations. "Somewhere out there, I have a family. I know I had one before I came here. They are probably wondering where I am, and waiting for me to come home."

He waited for her to say something but she didn't, so he continued.

"Sometimes, I stay up and just think about this family I don't remember. I imagine my mum, with her blond hair, like mine, making cookies and worrying about me, wherever I am. I imagine I have siblings, too, like, half siblings, and that I have a step-dad who takes care of them because my real dad wouldn't." He said with a note of wistfulness but then continued despondently, "But I know it's not true. Everything I think of them is just a lie."

He didn't need to be looking at her to know her eyebrow was raised.

Jason sighed and explained, "You don't remember much when you're two but in the memories I do have, there is no blond woman - just a flash of blue eyes and black hair." Jason shook his head. "But that person was not my dad. That person was definitely not my dad." He repeated. "She was a girl. Young, too. But that's all I remember and no matter how much I _do_ try to remember, that's it – a blur of blue and black; everything of my life before the Roman camp." He finished, frustratingly.

Stars spilled across the black sky as he waited for her to say something about him being crazy or needing to get a grip on reality.

"If it is all just a lie, it is the most beautiful lie I have ever heard." She said, after a while, breaking the silence. "I wish I could be like you and have the freedom to not remember and believe whatever I want."

He shook his head again. "You don't what this. It's sucks."

She shook her head, too, and looked at him. "You know what sucks? Having all the answers and not liking the truth. _That _sucks."

"No, but at leas-" he tried reasoning but she turned her attention back to the sky and he knew to drop it. Again, they listened to the flowing river and the soft chirping of crickets.

"Jason?" His girlfriend said after a while.

"Yeah?"

"Can we keep this between us?"

"Sure."

"I'm serious." She said. Her tone backed this up.

"I am too." He replied.

'You can't tell Bobby or even Dakota." She pressed.

"Let me put it this way: If the world was ending and I had to choose between saving it and keeping your secret, I'd keep your secret." He told her, a hint of teasing in his seriousness.

Rolling her eyes at him, she said, "You can tell it when _that_ happens."

She was smiling which gave Jason the say-so to continue joking around.

Jason gave an exaggerated sigh of relief. "Good because I quite like the world when it's still alive."

"Even after it gave you the cards it did?" She asked, not catching onto his humour.

"It's not all that bad." He shrugged, completely serious now. "I met you, didn't I?"

The daughter of Bellona smiled a bit more at this, and she moved her hand across the grass to hold his.

"Thanks." She softly said before kissing him on the cheek.

He looked her in the eyes and, for the first time, he wasn't seeing the eyes he first made contact with three years ago. Sure, they were still two black diamonds but they weren't clouded by mystery anymore.

He let out a long breath.

"What are you thinking about?" She asked curiously.

"Nothing. Just a mystery I've just solved."

"What mystery?"

"You." He propped himself on his elbows.

She raised an eyebrow. "Me?"

"Yeah."

"I'm a mystery?" She repeated.

She was scowling, now, and he knew it.

"Mmm hmm. But aren't we all?"

* * *

**But when they were 16, the "something unimaginable" happened and she was left heartbroken.**

The daughter of Bellona watched as he reached for another girl's hands.

She knew she should've, but couldn't, look away as he began kissing his new love.

The girl had a look of happiness on her face. That person use to be her.

He brushed the girl's choppy brown hair away from her face, the same way he had once done to her.

"You're beautiful." She could hear him tell the girl, the same way he had once whispered to her.

All the time she spent convincing herself she was over him went out the window in that moment because she suddenly saw herself with him all those months ago doing the same thing and it made her heart ache.

She saw a slightly younger version of herself wrinkle her nose in protest and him laughing at her and adding "You are."

She saw a slightly younger version of him leaning in to kiss her again; tentatively, passionately and then tenderly.

She watched the new happy couple but didn't see _her _wrinkle her nose is disagreement or him reassuring her she was because the truth was; she was a daughter of Aphrodite - the goddess of beauty and of love – and she _was_ beautiful _and_ she had love.

_Of course, _she thought to herself as they walked off, arms draped over each other. _Love accumulates only around people who have plenty of it already; the soft, the pretty, the affable. _

* * *

**Just like at the start; there once was a boy who loved a girl. Only this time, she loved him back, too.**

"So you decided to come back to Camp Jupiter." She said. "Why?"

The blond shrugged his shoulders. "I just remembered something."

She did question him any further but he knew she wanted to. He put her out of her misery.

"You."

She rolled her eyes.

"Well, more specifically, a promise I made to you three years ago."

"Is this is the part I forgive you and we all live happily ever after? Because it's not going to happen." She said flatly.

Jason sighed, already tired because he forgot how it was like to talk to her, before speaking. "Reyna, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for disappearing. I'm sorry for not remembering you. I'm sorry for ignoring you when I came back. I'm sorry for not keeping my end of the promise and for every other wrong I've done against you. Can't we just go back and act like this never happened?"

She turned to face him, eyes narrowed and anger evident on her face. "Don't you get it? There is nothing to go back to! Everything we had is no longer there! It started disappearing a little more each day you were gone and it totally vanished the day you came back!"

She stopped yelling and turned her head to the left to avoid looking at him directly. She was out of breath and close to tears.

"Rey," He reached for her hands but she folded her arms.

He let out another sigh. "Maybe, we could start over again. From the start? I did it once, right? I can do it again."

"Forget it. That took years, Grace." She grumbled.

"Well, I've got plenty of time and you've just called me "Grace" - it took you ages to even acknowledge me at all, and this time it didn't involve me following you -"

"Like some pervert." She interjected.

"- around for weeks. See? I've already got a head start." He tried joking.

She rolled her eyes again.

"Come on, don't be like this, Reyna." He said more seriously. "I came back for you. Isn't that enough to get you to, at least, look at me?"

She sighed, giving in, and turned her head to look at him. "There."

"And an "I've missed you"?"

"No."

"Come on," He said, with his best puppy-dog impression.

He knew he was testing her limits.

She was still looking at him, but seemed adamant on not caving in.

He saddened his eyes a bit more and began pouting.

"Fine;" She said, exasperated, and dropped her arms. "I've missed seeing your ugly face around, Grace. There."

He pretended to be weighing up her genuineness, "Yeah, I'll take that." before laughing.

She shook her head and walked off without him.

Jason ran and caught up to her.

"So how was I went we first met?" She suddenly asked.

He, with a smile, replied, "Oh, you know, scowling. Always scowling."

"Like this?"

"Yeah, just like that."

"What else?"

"You use to ignore me."

She started walking a little faster.

"Hey!" He yelled after her.

No reply. She didn't even slow down.

He laughed. "I see what you're doing!"

She stopped walking, looked back at him and started yelling in a slightly higher-pitched voice.

"What is your problem? You are always in my way! If there is something you want to say to me, why don't you just say it to my face?"

Jason chuckled and stepped towards her, reaching for her hands. Her fake scowl turned into a smile.

"I just wanted to say that you look really pretty today. And every other day, too." He said, playing along for a bit, before kissing her.

Their kiss was slow, gentle and long overdue and, just like the first kiss, it, too, held the promise of a new beginning. And what made it even better was that she didn't pull away this time.

* * *

_Translations (Google Translate):_

_Magnus porcus - Big pig_

_Bardus lovis filium. Vos ire contristabitur. - Stupid son of Jupiter. You are going to be sorry._

_Nubes - A cloud_

_Leporinum formavitque nubes - A rabbit-shaped cloud_

_Aquila- An eagle_

_Pardus - A leopard _

_Genu - A knee_

_Cubito - An elbow_

_Scapulam- A shoulder_

_Fragmencapillus- A piece of hair_

_It's always these sickly sweet Jeyna stories that remind me of my actual heartbreak over their not being canon...Yet. Haha! Did you see what I did there? No, I haven't given up hope yet and neither should you. Keep shipping, Jeyna shippers!_

_Until next time, love always, V._


End file.
